Varanasi: Girls allegedly forced to run without skirts for not doing homework

Principal of a government school in eastern Uttar Pradesh has been suspended for allegedly forcing a group of girl students to run laps of the playground without their skirts for failing to memorise Sanskrit lessons.

A group of girl students was allegedly forced to run laps of the playground without their skirts for failing to memorise Sanskrit lessons.(HT File Photo)

Principal of a government school in eastern Uttar Pradesh has been suspended for allegedly forcing a group of girl students to run laps of the playground without their skirts for failing to memorise Sanskrit lessons.

Meena Singh was suspended on Monday after parents of around 15 Class 8 students gathered at Electricity Board Junior High School for Girls in Anpara in Sonbhadra district to protest against the punishment handed out to their daughters.

The principal has denied the charge.

“School principal Meena Singh has been suspended by the management of the school. It has constituted a probe committee to look into the matter. It will submit report in a week,” block education officer Dileep Kumar said on Tuesday.

Singh had on Friday asked the class to memorise some Sanskrit shlokas, education department officials said, citing complaints submitted by the parents. She ordered 15 girls out of the classroom the next day when they failed to recite the shlokas.

The girls were then given the murga punishment – that required them to squat, hold their ears by looping the arms behind the knees, a position resembling that of a rooster, or murga in Hindi.

The murga is counted among the worst forms of corporal punishment, which is banned in schools.

The girls were then asked to take off their skirts and run around the school ground, the officials said.

Embarrassed, the girls informed their parents, who came to the school on Monday and demanded action against the principal.

She didn’t ask the girls to take off their skirts and run, Meena Singh said. The girls were only asked to recite the shlokas and were told to inform their parents as they had not completed the homework, she said.